Father’s struggles guide heart surgeon’s career

For Dr. George Christensen III, his work is personal. And mesmerizing.

His passion for the teamwork and the technology that promote better results for patients is evident. But it was his father’s battle with heart disease that set his course as a cardiothoracic surgeon.

The opportunity to make a difference for patients – relying on seamless coordination at all levels of care and the latest technology – drives Christensen, one of the newer members of the St. Elizabeth Heart and Vascular Institute team.

“My father was afflicted with heart disease when I was a much younger age,” said Christensen, his voice tempered with emotion. “I had to see him go through the struggles for many years, including open heart surgery.”

His father, a TV broadcaster, died at age 52. Now, Christensen is seeing nearly miraculous results for patients in their 80s because of advances in the field.

February is Heart Month, designed to draw attention to the disease which is the leading cause of death in the country. St. Elizabeth Healthcare is on a mission to reduce heart-related deaths by 25 percent in Northern Kentucky in the next decade.

Once Christensen attended medical school, it was clear to him that he was going to be a surgeon. As he continued his training, he found “it was a challenging decision at first – until I stepped foot in my first open-heart surgery. It was mesmerizing … and I was really awestruck with the amount of folks who are in the operating room and how things are very orchestrated and team-oriented to fulfill each goal in each case,” said Christensen, who lives in Union.

His specialty is diseases of the heart, lungs and esophagus encompassing a wide array of pathology including infections or lesions, both benign and malignant. “In short, I’m a chest surgeon,” Christensen said.

The challenge is to constantly update options for minimally invasive surgery to decrease recovery time, the possibility of complications and time in the hospital.

“I think with technology, much of our approaches have changed. For instance, we’re doing minimally invasive valve surgery,” said Christensen. If you look at heart surgery historically, he explained, it’s based on the same premise of connecting one vessel to the other to restore function. But increased knowledge, newer skills and the latest technology are allowing surgeons to repair the heart with smaller incisions and quicker recoveries.

“This is all a work in progress,” he said. “We have great surgeons here who have perfected traditional surgery that has been augmented in various ways from start to finish that have allowed patients to get out of the hospital as early as four days (after surgery). You look at 20 years ago when my father had uncomplicated open-heart surgery, his in-patient recovery process was at least seven, eight days.”

There is still work to be done, but, he said “the ultimate idea is that we can offer surgeries for certain conditions that are less invasive, causing less pain – not having to be in the hospital as long and having better outcomes.”

St. Elizabeth Healthcare is challenging the community to make at least one heart-healthy decision each day and post it to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #29DaysofHeart. St. Elizabeth will upload tips to those social media channels all month and donate $1 to the American Heart Association HeartChase NKY for every #29DaysOfHeart share up to $5,000.